Get your fill of all sorts of tacos — from classic fish tacos to salted caramel tacos — during the sixth annual Hippo de Mayo Taco Challenge, when more than 45 eateries in downtown Manchester welcome thousands of guests to enjoy specially created tacos for $2 each.

Along with favorite restaurants that return for the taco tour each year, this year’s Hippo de Mayo welcomes a host of new eateries that recently joined the downtown food scene and are eager to be part of one of Manchester’s foodie traditions.

Loafin’ Life Bakery owner Emma Patterson said she attended the taco tour as “one of the masses” last year before opening the bakery in July.

“We thought it was fun, and we decided we [wanted] to be one of the restaurants participating,” Patterson said.

Having experienced Hippo de Mayo as a taco eater before becoming a taco maker, Patterson is making use of what she saw and heard last year.

“We are doing two tacos, a savory and a sweet taco,” she said. “We were walking around last year [and] I heard a lot of people talking about [how] there weren’t very many sweet tacos and there weren’t very many meatless tacos, so both of mine are meatless.”

The “applerito” is an apple-pie-inspired taco and the “jalapeno quesito” will have jalapenos, cheddar cheese and scrambled eggs.

While she doesn’t have a taco on the regular menu, Loafin’ Life serves apple turnovers and Danish and jalapeno bread, so she’s using menu flavors, but in a new format.

Highlighting what’s on the menu was also important for Gale Motor Co. Eatery chef and owner David Spagnuolo, who is joining Hippo de Mayo for the first time this year. He’ll be making a spicy pulled pork taco with a superfood slaw made with broccoli, Brussels sprouts and cabbage, topped with cilantro sour cream and sriracha.

“I was definitely set on doing something off the menu just because I like to make sure that what someone is eating, they can always get inside the restaurant,” he said. “Especially if somebody likes what they get, which they’re going to love.”

Only open for a few weeks before Hippo de Mayo, Spagnuolo was excited to jump right into the event.

“I want to get everyone that comes downtown, which is a ton of people, to know that I’m open and know what we do and just to get the word out there,” he said.

The executive chef for taco tour newcomers 1Oak on Elm and The Dugout, Joe Grella, also wants to showcase the skills and flavors of each restaurant and will present two very different tacos for tour-goers.

For the refined, higher-end-style upstairs they’ll make a duck confit taco with beet and carrot slaw. The “home cooked, rib sticking” style sports bar will offer a pulled rib taco made with 12-hour smoked and braised ribs with “something like an apple and cabbage slaw … [and we’re] bouncing ideas for maybe adding some cheddar crisps, some crisp element to that to help round it out,” Grella added.

He noted that tacos are a big hit with consumers right now, which is great for chefs who can essentially take any dish and reconstruct it into a taco to make something new.

Vote for your favorite taco creation by visiting hippodemayo.com (accessible on most smartphones) and selecting your favorite from a drop-down menu. The judges’ choice winner (chosen by a panel of Hippo staff foodies) will be awarded $2,000 for their charity of choice.